Ok, so… I had already written a post for today’s strip, but around 9pm Sunday night I noticed an email that really grabbed my attention. I won’t say who the email was from, but here is the content of the message:

To Alex,

You have a very nice comic there. I quite like it. Well drawn and many of the comics are quite funny. Well done. However there a few random comics you have done which are very obviously you saying “I hate Donald Trump”. Whether you like or hate him does not matter. You would be better to leave the politics out of your comics and focus on the games, pop culture and everything that makes your comics great. The politics in a few of your comics is totally not needed and makes people turn away from your comics. Totally ruins your other good comic webpage.

So overall a good page, just remove the political comics.

Truth be told, I was initially going to ignore it… then send a response email… but then figured that this is important enough to me to warrant having my response be public.

To be perfectly clear, I absolutely appreciate the email and the reader that sent it my way. Anyone who has ever sent me a message has received a response (if you haven’t you message might have ended up in spam), I really do love getting Corpse Mail.

Now, to address the message itself:

Once upon a time there was a comic strip that I absolutely loved and read religiously. It happened to be one of the first webcomics I read and was one of the strips that made me dream of having a comic of my own one day. A few years into my readership, the artist started a second strip in which their political views were made evident.

These political views were different (at the time) from mine.

For some reason, I felt betrayed on a deep personal level. Here was an artist whose work I loved so much and identified with so closely, how could this person believe different things? While I never stopped reading both the strips, in some way the experience felt tainted; I let my thin skin detract from my enjoyment of the work.

As time went on however, I got over it. We live in a diverse world; we live and interact with so many people with so many different ideologies… it’s safe to assume that everyone thinks certain things differently than I. No one is going to think the same things I do about every topic, so it’d be silly to let the concept of “so-and-so thinks differently than I do” get in the way.

That said, even when I felt that silly initial betrayal, it would never enter my mind to tell the artist what they could, or should, or should not, talk about on their website. It’s their website, it’s their opinions, it’s their speech.

They have a right to it and they have a right to not be told what to say, no matter if I agree with it or not.

So to the reader who sent the email, I appreciate the message and I want you to know that I take everything readers send me to heart. No one is forced to read Corpse Run, so I am genuinely ecstatic when folks choose to read my silly strips with their lame artwork. It makes my day and there is nothing I love more than making this comic; it was something I dreamed of doing as a kid and having the opportunity to make it is a privilege.

While I do try to keep politics to a minimum (and up until this election had basically zero political anything here), please remember that Corpse Run is my comic, and I reserve the right to make strips about any topic.

I don’t want to lose you as a reader, but I understand your decision whatever you happen to choose. Thank you again for your message.

…and now back to the original post!

The rats really got a raw deal in Final Fantasy 9, which is really kind of strange considering that even the other major countries had super diverse populations and theoretically should have been empathetic to other races.

Weird.

Come on, Alexandrians, take back your government!

I started Resident Evil 7 on Friday and while I didn’t play all that long (the first hour or so was hampered by technical issues with RE7 not playing nice with OBS) I am stunned to say that RE7 is somehow blowing my already astronomical expectations out of the water.

It’s just so different from RE4-6. It’s so fresh. Don’t get me wrong, Resident Evil 4 will always be one of my favorite games ever… but I do recognize that it started the trend of “action-y” Resident Evils that ultimately gave the world 5 (absolutely terrible) and 6 (fun, but over the top, triple A, action movie wackiness).

RE7 so far features none of the RE characters of old (though that might change) and I can’t remember the last time I felt so vulnerable playing a RE game. Again, I’ve only played about two hours so far, but they have been a stupendously amazing two hours.

Discussion (9) ¬

I thought Trump supporters wanted to take down safe spaces, yet here they are complaining everytime someone manifests their disagreement to Trump’s politics and asking them to stfu (aka asking for a safe space).

I don’t think that the emailer is a Trump supporter necessarily (emailer isn’t American), but I wanted to share the response as this isn’t the first time I’ve been told what to/what not to make comics about on this website (though this was the first time it was of a political nature).

While I would never try to tell an artist what to do, I do generally avoid things that get into politics on one side or the other. It’s not because I feel alienated or because someone disagrees with me, as usually even if an author disagrees they often do it in a civil manner or for the sake of humor. (Though certainly I’ve seen people on both sides go on crazy rants before, or saying that anyone who believes differently from them should not be allowed to read their work)

Where I come from it is usually not a good idea to reveal your political alignment because the most you get from people on your side is a nod, and the most you get from people on a different side is they assault you and destroy your property. So I’m just not willing to risk someone seeing me reading a comic that has a known political affiliation.

So, I’m not saying you shouldn’t be able to create what you want (there hasn’t been anything yet that would make me stop reading) but there is some worth to an argument against including political subjects in a piece of mass entertainment.

Also I apologize if I made any errors while writing this, English is not my first language.

That said, if I’m hiding what I think on a given topic in fear of pushback/retribution/ridiculue/etc, then I need to either examine why I think the things I think, or recognize that my convictions can’t be that strong in the first place.

I can’t speak for where you come from, but in America no one should be afraid to say what’s on their mind, even if I don’t agree with them.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with discussing politics. I mean, we can all agree that Alex is Really Quite Wrong when it comes to computers, and nobody’s grilling him over that. This is a place where he can express what’s on his mind, be it Final Fantasy, what’s happening in the US, or his absolutely terrible choices in computer hardware that should get him burned at the stake.

Alex, I don’t want you to make a comic with sexy catgirls.
You’re not allowed to do this! (does this make you want to do it? I hope so).

But more seriously: I personally don’t really care if you make a comic about politics/your opinion. You have the right do to so and I won’t be bothered by it as long as you don’t go crazy mode like other people.
However I am getting a bit tired of the American politics, it’s nearly everywhere you go on the internet, it’s the daily main news topic in my country and while it is important I wish I could just go a day without hearing about it.
I don’t live in America but I feel like the last election cycle was pretty brutal and that regardless of your opinion, people will be at your throat.